Page 40 of Dead Vengeance

Archer

It’s still dark as I stumble downstairs. It was a long drive home last night, and I’m verging on exhausted, but I can’t sleep anyway.

The haunting of this place doesn’t help. Life in general doesn’t help. And now Liam…

“Breakfast!” Old Tony yells at me the second I set foot on the cold floorboards.

He’s seated at the head of the table, knife and fork in hand, staring dead ahead at the wall. I’ve never been able to get more out of him than that. I don’t even know if his name is Tony—I just call him that because I have to call him something. I don’t know why he’s here, what he wants, or if there’s any way for him to move on. It’s not an everyday thing, like with most ghosts who regularly haunt. Sometimes he’s just here and… hungry, I guess.

It is what it is. I learned to stop questioning this way of life a long time ago.

“Coming right up,” I mumble, switching on the heating, flicking on the kettle, stumbling over to the pantry to find some flour and eggs.

Baking always helps. My happy place. It’s the one time I can sink into calm, just measure and knead, forget all about—

“Archer!”

“What the fuck!” All the scant morning calm drops away in the sheer panic of having a ghost voice loud in my ear at the crack of dawn. “We’ve talked about this! Warn me quietly when you’re approaching.”

Simon neither lowers his voice nor steps back, just stands there being all dead and floaty and creepy. “Did you get rid of them?” he demands.

“Who?” I wince, taking my apron off its hook, tying the straps behind my back.

“Who?” he repeats dramatically. “What do you mean, who? Just the pair of nincompoops who tried to shoot me yesterday.”

The kettle screams, but not as loudly as my desperation for coffee. “Not ‘pair.’ One nincompoop. Singular. And no, he won’t be returning. Or… I hope not. Look, if he does, I’ll turn him away at the door.”

“Breakfast!” Old Tony shouts, slamming his cutlery down on the table.

“Oh, but you’ll have the other one back?” Simon sneers at me.

My head drops to the side as I try to gather the energy for an argument when the sun isn’t even up yet. “What did Liam ever do to you?”

“Well,” he attempts to rattle out while I set about measuring flour into a bowl, “he came in here, and it seems to me, his sole purpose is to kill ghosts, so…”

“And yet he didn’t harm a hair on your head.”

“Only because he was so useless,” he volleys.

“Breakfast!” yells Old Tony.

“Have you ever heard of manners, Tony?” I call back to him.

“So, basically, you don’t care at all what I have to say about the matter?” Simon carries on, full of his own importance as ever.

“What would you have me do? I cannot fix this thing upstairs by myself. I need help. Who else do you suggest I call if not for people whose job it is to get rid of things like the thing upstairs?”

“Kraa!” Edgar’s tapping at the window now, and I can’t even describe the way every bone in my body is aching to crawl back into bed, even if it’s just to lie there awake and worry for another hour or two. At least it would be quiet. I keep that room warded from ghosts for this exact reason.

I leave a floury handprint on the latch when I pull it open to let him in. Swiftly, I turn to the fridge and do the same to the handle there when I break out some raspberries to pop a few down for him.

“Kraa!” he shouts, poking at the four raspberries with his long beak in a disapproving manner.

“That’s enough,” I tell him. “I need them for Liam.”

“Breakfast!” Old Tony shouts.

“It’s not like you can even taste food!” I throw at Tony. “What’s your rush?”